the editing technique of
alternating, interweaving, or interspersing one narrative action (scene,
sequence, or event) with another - usually in different locations or places,
thus combining the two; this editing method suggests parallel action
(that takes place simultaneously); often used to dramatically build tension
and suspense in chase scenes, or to compare two different scenes; also known
as inter-cutting or parallel editing.

a film or production that is made
for one audience, but may easily 'cross-over' to another unexpected audience;
also refers to a film, actor, or production that appeals to different demographic
groups or age groups and can move between two or more distinct franchises;
see also hybrid

Examples:
Cross-over films include Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding (2001) - basically
a film with Indian-oriented content that had wide international appeal and
crossed multi-cultural barriers, and the same was true for Bend It Like
Beckham (2002), Y Tu Mamá También (2001, Mex.)
and Barbershop (2002). Similarly, the animated smash Finding Nemo
(2003) appealed to both children and adult audiences, for different
reasons. Cross-over stars include Humphrey Bogart as a romantic lead and
as a hard-boiled detective, or James Cagney as a song-and-dance man and
as a tough guy.

a shot or image of a large group
of people (often extras) in a film; CGI is now often used to film large crowd shots, to avoid huge costs associated with hiring extras

Example:
A crowd shot on the streets of NY from King Vidor's silent classic The
Crowd (1928)

cue

a signal or sign for an actor
to begin performing, from either another performer, from the director, or
from within the script; a cue is often the last word of one character's
line(s) of dialogue, when another performer is expected to 'pick up their
cue' to speak.

cue cards

a device (cards, scrolling screen,
teleprompter, or other mechanism) printed with dialogue provided to help
an actor recite his/her lines; an electronic cue card is called a (tele)-prompter;
derogatively called idiot cards or idiot sheets.

usually a non-mainstream film
that attracts a small, but loyally-obsessed group of fans, and remains popular
and worshipped over many years; cult films have limited but special appeal,
and often have unusual or subversive elements or subject matter; they are
often replayed for repeat viewings and audience participation (and group
identification) as midnight movies; not to be confused with B-films
(not all cult films are B-films)

Examples:
most cult films are from the horror
and sci-fi genres, such as The Rocky Horror
Picture Show (1975), Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978), Repo
Man (1984); also Harold and Maude (1971), Pink Floyd: The
Wall (1982), the films of Roger Corman or David Lynch, etc.

cut(or cutting)

an abrupt or sudden change or
jump in camera angle, location, placement, or time, from one shot to another;
consists of a transition from one scene to another (a visual cut) or from
one soundtrack to another (a sound cut); cutting refers to the selection,
splicing and assembly by the film editor of the various shots or sequences
for a reel of film, and the process of shortening a scene; also refers to
the instructional word 'cut' said at the end of a take by the director
to stop the action in front of the camera; cut to refers to the point
at which one shot or scene is changed immediately to another; also refers
to a complete edited version of a film (e.g., rough cut); also see
director's cut; various types of cuts include invisible cut,
smooth cut, jump cut (an abrupt cut from one scene or shot to the next), shock cut (the abrupt replacement of one image by another), etc.

Director yelling cut!

cutaway shot

a brief shot that momentarily
interrupts a continuously-filmed action, by briefly inserting another related
action, object, or person (sometimes not part of the principal scene
or main action), followed by a cutback to the original shot; often filmed
from the POV of the character and used to break up a sequence and provide
some visual relief, or to ease the transition from one shot to the next,
or to provide additional information, or to hint at an impending change;
reaction shots are usually cutaways; cross-cutting is a series
of cutaways and cutbacks indicating concurrent action; a cutaway is different
from an insert shot.

a sub-genre of science fiction,
derived from combining the terms cybernetics and punk, and
related to the digital or information technology society (referring to the proliferation of computers,
the online world, cyberspace, and 'hacking'); this sub-genre also incorporates
classic film-noirish characteristics into its style - traits include
alienation, dehumanization, the presence of counter-cultural anti-heroes, darkness, dystopia,
and corruption; heavily influenced by the novels of Raymond Chandler; also
associated with the work of writer William Gibson and his 1984 novel Neuromancer

the curved backdrop used to represent
the sky when outdoor scenes are shot in the studio

dailies

the immediately processed, rough
cuts, exposed film, or first prints of a film (w/o special effects or edits) for the director
(producer, cinematographer, or editor) to review, to see how the film came out after the
day's (or previous day's) shooting; more commonly in the form of videotape
or digital dailies nowadays; aka rushes (referring to the haste taken to make
them available); used to determine if continuity is correct, if props
are missing or out of place, or if sound is poor, etc., to help decide whether
to re-shoot

dark horse

in film terms, a little-known,
unlikely movie (often a sleeper, a low-budget film, indie,
or a foreign film) that is, surprisingly, nominated for a major award
(i.e., Academy Award or Golden Globe)

Examples: Marty
(1955), The Accidental Tourist (1988), The Full Monty
(1997), and The Pianist (2002)

day-for-night shot

a cinematographic technique for
using shots filmed during the day to appear as moonlit night shots on the
screen, by using different lenses, filters, special lighting and underexposure;
very common during the 50s and in the 60s, but rarely used in present-day
films.

Example:
Alluded to in Francois Truffaut's film about film-making, La Nuit Americaine
- Day for Night (1973),

a specific type of comedic device
in which the performer assumes an expressionless (deadpan) quality to her/his
face demonstrating absolutely no emotion or feeling.

Example: a trademark of Buster Keaton's comedic form, seen here in The
Navigator (1924).

decoupage

a French term referring to the
design of a film - the arrangement of its shots

deep-focus
shot

a style or technique of cinematography
and staging with great depth of field, preferred by realists, that
uses lighting, relatively wide angle lenses and small lens apertures to
simultaneously render in sharp focus both close and distant planes
(including the three levels of foreground, middle-ground, and extreme background
objects) in the same shot; contrast to shallow focus (in which only
one plane is in sharp focus)

Examples: Gregg Toland's pioneering cinematography in many deep-focus images in Citizen
Kane (1941) such as in this image of young Kane in the far distance
and other foreground action - all in focus; also in other 1940s films of Welles and Wyler (such as The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)), including this famous deep
focus scene from The Little Foxes (1941)

deleted scene

refers to a scene that was edited
out of a film's final cut, for several possible reasons: the scene was poorly
done, the scene was unnecessary, the film's running time needed truncation,
the film was avoiding an R or NC-17 rating, the film's studio disapproved
of it, etc. Deleted scenes are now commonly included on DVDs, either re-edited
into a director's cut or as a separate feature

Example:
In Alien (1979), its most famous deleted
scene was the one of Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) discovering the alien's nest
and the bodies of Dallas (Tom Skerritt) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton),
restored in the Director's Cut release of the film in 2003

denouement

the point immediately following
the climax when everything comes into place or is resolved; often the final
scene in a motion picture; aka tag; see resolution

depth of field

the depth of composition of a
shot, i.e., where there are several planes (vertical spaces in a
frame): (1) a foreground, (2) a middle-ground, and (3) a background;
depth of field specifically refers to the area, range of distance, or field
(between the closest and farthest planes) in which the elements captured
in a camera image appear in sharp or acceptable focus; as a rule of thumb,
the area 1/3 in front of and 2/3 behind the subject is the actual distance
in focus; depth of field is directly connected, but not to be confused
with focus

Example:
Extreme depth-of-field in many shots in Citizen Kane
(1941) to heighten dramatic value, achieved by using very bright
lighting and a slightly wide-angled lens by cinematographer Gregg Toland,
causing objects or characters close in the frame's foreground to appear
massive, while other objects appear smaller in the background; other scenes
with extreme depth-of-field include the early snowball scene, the 'Crash
of '29' scene, and Susan's overdose scene

depth of focus

related to depth of field - refers to an adjustment made technically to insure that a camera shot retains its deep focus throughout all the various planes (fore, middle, and back)

Example: Citizen Kane (1941)has many examples of deep-focus shots in which the foreground and background are in focus

deus ex machina

literally, the resolution of the
plot by the device of a god ("deus") arriving onstage by means
of a piece of equipment ("machina") and solving all the characters'
problems; usually refers to an unlikely, improbable, contrived, illogical,
or clumsy ending or suddenly-appearing plot device that alleviates a difficult
situation or brings about a denouement - just in the nick of time;
can sometimes refer to an unexpected, artificial, or improbable character

Examples:
when a poor protagonist unexpectedly receives an inheritance, or when the
cavalry arrives at just the right time to save a beleaguered wagon train;
the Coen Brothers' The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) in which Moses - a
black custodian, fixes the Hollywood firm's clock and predicts the outcome
of events, and the narrator stops the film midstream - during a suicidal
leap - (pictured) and directly addresses the audience; or the ending of
Demons (1985); or the resolution of the plot by Queen Elizabeth in
Shakespeare in Love (1998)

dialogue

any spoken lines in a film by
an actor/actress; may be considered overlapping if two or more characters
speak simultaneously; in film-making, recording dialogue to match lip movements on previously-recorded film is called dubbing or looping

simply means realistic or logically
existing, such as the music that plays on a character's radio in a scene; more generally, it refers to the narrative elements of a film (such as spoken dialogue,
other sounds, action) that appear in, are shown, or naturally originate
within the content of the film frame; the opposite is non-diegetic
elements, such as sounds(e.g., background music, the musical
score, a voice-over, or other sounds) w/o an origin within the film frame
itself; in an objective shot, the most common camera shot, it simply
presents what is before the camera in the diegesis of the narrative

Example:
in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), diegetic
sounds are heard of the 'keys' men (who drive trucks with glaring headlights)
as they approach E.T.'s spaceship, to suggest danger

diffusion

the reduction or softening of
the harshness or intensity of light achieved by using a diffuser or translucent
sheet (lace or silk) in front of the light to cut down shadows; materials
include screen, glass, filters, gauze, wire mesh, or smoke; also see soft-focus.

digital production

refers to filming on digital video using digital high-resolution cameras, rather than on traditional 35mm film

in cinematographic terms, using
light and dark lighting and frame composition to emphasize what is important

direct sound

the technique of recording sound
simultaneously with the image

director
(and directing)

the creative artist responsible
for complete artistic control of all phases of a film's production (such
as making day-to-day determinations about sound, lighting, action, casting,
even editing), for translating/interpreting a script into a film, for guiding
the performances of the actors in a particular role and/or scene, and for
supervising the cinematography and film crew. The director
is usually the single person most responsible for the finished product,
although he/she couldn't make a film without support from many other artists
and technicians; often the director is called a helmer (at-the-helm);
the assistant director is known as the a.d. ; the director of photography
(or cinematographer), responsible for the mechanics of camera placement, movements, and lighting, is known as the d.p.

Example:
director Ernst Lubitsch on the set - see this site's write-up on the "Greatest
Directors"

director's cut

a rough cut (the first
completely-edited version) of a film without studio interference as the
director would like it to be viewed, before the final cut (the last
version of the film that is released) is made by the studio.

refers to the making of an adapted,
sanitized, 'family-friendly' version of a book or play, by removing objectionable
elements (such as crude language, sexuality, or violence) and modifying
plot elements to make the tale more acceptable, entertaining, predictable
and popular for mass consumption by audiences, as first exercised by the
Disney studios in the 50s; now used as a derogatory term for how popular
culture has been homogenized and cultural diversity has been minimized;
see also bowdlerize(d)

a transitional editing technique
between two sequences, shots or scenes, in which the visible image of one
shot or scene is gradually replaced, superimposed or blended (by an overlapping fade
out or fade in and dissolve) with the image from another
shot or scene; often used to suggest the
passage of time and to transform one scene to the next; lap dissolve is
shorthand for 'over'lap dissolve; also known as a soft transition
or dissolve to

Example:
the many dissolves in the opening sequence of Citizen
Kane (1941) as the camera approaches Kane's Xanadu estate; also
in Metropolis (1927)the dissolves that transform the face of
the heroine Maria into the face of an evil robot; and the transformational dissolves in The Wolf Man (1941) and The Invisible Man (1933) (pictured);

a non-fiction (factual), narrative
film with real people (not performers or actors); typically, a documentary
is a low-budget, journalistic record of an event, person, or place; a documentary
film-maker should be an unobtrusive observer - like a fly-on-the-wall,
capturing reality as it happens; aka doc or docu; also called
direct cinema; one type is termed docudrama; contrast with
cinema verite and mockumentary

Examples:
a term first coined by John Grierson when describing Robert Flaherty's (the
'father of the documentary') 'objective' film about the daily life of a
Polynesian youth, Moana (1926); Michael Moore's Roger and Me (1989)
and Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me (2004): examples of independent
documentaries; 'subjective', propagandistic documentaries also exist, such
as Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1935)